


6 of Spades - Ultra Luxe

by nimrodcracker



Series: the long road [8]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Sierra Madre (Fallout), Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22159828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimrodcracker/pseuds/nimrodcracker
Summary: so many chances to die, so many reasons to live.(Christine & Courier Six surviving the Madre)
Relationships: Female Courier & Christine Royce
Series: the long road [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/205832
Kudos: 6





	6 of Spades - Ultra Luxe

**Author's Note:**

> heavy material. note the tags. 
> 
> posting stuff i wrote long ago but never got around to publishing.

So much blood, of the liquid that oozes onto the cracked sands of the wasteland, of the liquid that slides on her scarred skin, of the little tear-shaped droplets that bob around in a tank of viscous blue.

She sees red everywhere: in the gaps between her fingers, in the eyepieces of their gas masks, in the spots that stain the crumbling tile floors of a Pre-War resort.

Red is the hate and anger she sees reflected in his eyes, the Burned Man being all but the life he had when he became the Malpais Legate, when he effortlessly thrusts a knife into the one who razed New Canaan.

She hates the crimson, hates the stench, but no matter how far she walks across states and battlefields, it always catches up with her; like the stubborn stench of stale sweat clinging to her shirt.

But this isn't what she wants to dwell on. That isn't what anyone wants to dwell on.

But they do anyway. Because after what they've done, safety is as real as them believing that their war ended the moment they left the battlefield.

They don't deserve safety.

Not when they've snatched it from the clammy hands of the living.

* * *

Itch, the goddamn _itch_ \- clammy hands and crawling skin all over and she can't make it stop. Most of her tokens had been exchanged for stims for her scarred companion, and that leaves none for Fixer or smokes. She doesn't know when her meager pack of cancer sticks will dwindle into nothing.

It's terrifying.

A day - one _whole_ day - since she's tasted tar on her lips and ash in her lungs, and her body is already fading into a flux; as persistent as the never-ending hordes of Ghost People in this resort from hell. Twitchin' fingers and unsteady gazes she can't hold and she knows her time's runnin' out.

So she has to settle, even compensate. Glugs down centuries-old booze stashed in dusty drawers and suitcases, liquid light and dark and anything in between. All of them slide down her throat messily enough; some burn, some soothe, but more often than not, all of 'em warm the numb walls of her throat. If anything, her cracked lips and parched throat take away the weight of suffocating memory, just like the nicotine. Kicks it down, tosses it out of mind.

Amber liquid, shining bright and glossy like the rounds she's been tossing around between her palms. Or at least, what passes as glossy in the red-stained hue of the Villa's night.

It reminds her of the whiskey, of the vintages she scours the wasteland for, until she realises that she continues hunting for them because it's the sole reminder of a father that came home one day in a flag-draped box. A bear stitched on its cloth. A badge of pride, they say.

Then why does it hurt, so many years later?

There isn't much for her to look forward to in the life she walks except for seven letters, but they all aren't here with her, aren't they? (Her hands jitters for it, jerks for it, and she has to kick her Colt away from her before she sleeps. Before she regrets. There's no coming back from where that leads.)

A round slips. It shoots out of her hands, bounces against dirt-crusted floors. Ends up rolling towards the woman sitting cross-legged beside her.

 _Sorry_ , she mumbles sheepishly, expecting a glare.

But no. Christine nods, mute as always. (Why does she hope otherwise? She can deal with the silence, just this once. She can. She needs to.) Then, Christine shifts her gaze back, peeping down at the streets through a fist-size gash in the wall.

They all have scars, she tells herself, while rifling through her pockets for battered cigarettes to puff on. She can't speak of her yellowing fingers that curl around the butt of a smoke, nor can she ask Christine about the jagged scars that carve up her much of her neck and face; they stare back at her through reflective bullet hulls, no matter how hard she tries looking away.

Christine's scars are visible. Hers are hidden under cloth and hair.

One last cigarette, she discovers in horror. Her pockets are filled with naught but jars of Cloud Sight and capsules of Rad-X. A tremor rocks her - all that drops out in a damning clatter are those.

Something must've shown on her face, because Christine is tapping her kneecap alongside a piercing stare and that means the woman has something to say.

The more Christine gestures, the easier she breathes, because if she understands right, she needn't fear the sweaty nights and gnawing in her feet if they get their hands on scavenged parts. Christine can't read, can't speak, but she can forge tokens from scrap. Somehow.

That just means she can't drink herself to death. It's a good compromise.

* * *

They say blue is a colour of calm. That blue guides the wandering mind, sinks it into comforting sleep, but she's seen too much for it to stay that way.

Blue is the place she spends her nights doubting the skin on her bones, the thumping rhythm in her chest, the thoughts that drift in her mind.

War has become the marrow in her bones. It doesn't take long for the whispers to hound her, the chorale that refuses to abate when her hands still and her mind idles.

She's palmed her pistol many times, but only after escaping Big MT does she spot the crusted blood caking its grip and the bruises blotching her palms.

Blue is the fear that crushes her lungs into a heaving mess and mind a useless clump of nerves as she zigzags through the casino from table to table before _they_ see her. What is her defence against silhouettes that can't be shot dead?

It would've so easy, so very easy to charge into their lasers and feel no more, but her legs refuse to turn however much she tries. Like the heavens themselves are trying all they can to stop her.

Blue is the colour of approaching death.

* * *

Lobotomites, Ghost People, Christine's irises that dilate in fear before she descends into the depths of the power station below.

Mold on the wall, fog of the Villa, the rustle of Father Elijah's robes before there's lasers torching her footsteps on slippery catwalks.

Brown is the aftermath. Brown is the fallout. Brown is the colour Six wakes to as she jolts awake in Vera's bed, drenched in sweat and the gnawing sensation of loss occupying her wakeful hours. The dress draped on a chair, the peeling wallpaper across her. The fog, creeping closer as her breath hitches and her lungs sag. Christine's eyes as she comes over without a sound, worry clear. She has her voice back, Auto Doc guaranteed, but there isn't a point to words.

Today, it's Christine's turn to hug her to sleep. Other days, it's Six who grabs Christine's hands that fly to her throat in unspeakable grief, careening between wakefulness and sleep.

How hard they hold each other doesn't make a difference - it comes all the same.

* * *

Gray is the colour of everything wrong in this place; in the wasteland, in her life. Comes in a pair, and maybe more after - when there's gray there's often red and with red brown follows and it never, _ever_ ends.

It's the signal of impending horror and her hands shake but

_make_

_it_

_stop_

Years later and miles away from the Madre, every beep of a radio still has her reaching for a collar that isn't there, hands moving from the blanket of explosions burned on the back of her eyelids. Even as she sucks in harsh breaths, she's still waiting for the nonexistent beeps to taper off into a final whine.

Gray like the chains around his hands cage two people in a single body struggling to break free. Struggling to see the life they were meant to have. She kills one in the name of survival, but they don't teach her how to survive the aftermath. They don't teach them how to find peace. So they carry it all in their souls forever - Bitter Springs, Zion, Nipton, Searchlight.

She is a bleeding wound that doesn't heal.

Gray like the gun she presses against her temple, amber bullets lodged inside the magazine. Cold, unforgiving metal that digs into her skin like a shovel slicing through dirt. A simple trigger press away and she'd be free: away from the nightmares, the guilt, the nagging thought that _she could've done better_.

Even if Elijah is dead by her hand, his body now at the bottom of a nuclear vault, she cannot will away the wretched feelings.

She'd mustered up the courage, clutching her Colt in her right, but her grip slackens when _their_ voices and _their_ faces appear in her mind like a sick joke and she drops the gun to hug herself, tears mingling with silent screams until sleep claims her.

When she wakes, Christine is beside her, snoozing on a chair with back straighter than a pole. The gun is nowhere to be seen until she spots bullets on the floor.

When she sees the Colt scattered on the carpet in parts, her hand snakes towards Christine's. She holds it tightly.

Her friend squeezes back a heartbeat later. There are no words, but she thinks she hears them anyway.

_You're alive._

_I'm alive._

_And we're leaving this place together._


End file.
